Tag: device
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It is with a fair amount of confidence that we can say that 2014 has started off extremely well and at an amazing pace!

Teachers and students have been right in the thick of the action with teaching and learning programs well and truly in full swing, as you would expect. For students involved in our BYOD iPad Program, that being all 620 students in years 1, 2, 6, 7 and 8, we have seen an amazing start to the year with iPad devices being showcased to facilitate and demonstrate teaching and learning programs and initiatives.

The use of mobile technology to cater for individual needs and to support student learning programs in place has certainly sparked creativity, innovation and a desire to showcase learning through the use of the iPad technology.

It has been also great to see students download and use the required iPad Applications to support their learning. As we have cut these down to 15 core applications from at least 60-70 in the past, it is vitally important that students in our Early Years, Middle Years and Support Centre sub schools have these applications. To access the 2014 iPad Application Lists, head to our shared “2014 eLearning Documentation” dropbox folder linked below.

Our Year 2 Teaching team have also taken their iPad App usage one step further and developed a new list of ‘must haves’ for their students. This is also located in their shared dropbox folder linked above.

Lastly, we have developed a set of classroom / learning iPad expectations for students in Prep – Yr 2 and 6 – 8. I have also added below our Yr 3 – 5 Classroom Laptop Use expectations also. Teachers are currently using these documents and referring to them constantly to ensure technology integration teaching and learning practices are the best that they can be!

If you have any questions about the above please do not hesitate to leave a comment or contact the College. 🙂

This was another big week at Manor Lakes P-12 College as we had another two wonderful groups of people out visiting our College to discuss all things iPads, 1:1, BYOD and technology integration in general!

There’s certainly been little to no sign of visitors letting up coming to out College and that we feel is a great thing! Being able to share our ‘journey’ with other schools and colleges who are either thinking about, beginning to head down, or are well on their way to implementing 1:1 iPads makes for some very worthwhile professional discussions.

Phil, James and Pam from Weetangera Primary School in the ACT (A big trip down!), were visiting Victoria and a number of school in and around Melbourne to see high quality teaching and learning programs based upon 1:1 technology integration as well as iPads being used to compliment teaching and learning programs, but also as to wether or not these devices can promote student learning outcomes. When Phil asked the question if we feel that iPads have promoted student learning outcomes we feel, quite confidently, that the answer is yet. What our challenge is now is to collect concrete data to prove this claim.

… and found that effective use of iPads can lead to all of these outcomes.” (I&J Management Services, 2011).

Passion Project!

I’d like to thanks Phil, James and Pam for not only their visit but for also their willingness to discuss, ask and share professional practice. A very worthwhile visit i felt for both parties!

On Friday we were lucky enough, for a second time around, to have several staff from Footscray City PS come to our college. Jessie, Emily and Kirsten arrived to view our 1:1 iPad Programs and to witness how our staff utilise these devices to foster student learning outcomes. Like with Weetangera’s visit, this was yet another that i feel proved just as valuable for both parties involved. It’s great to be questioned by our visitors relating to our schools professional practices, mainly around Professional Learning and technology integration. Footscray City are well on their way towards the technology goals they are wanting to achieve and hearing what plans they have for the future, also just like Weetangera PS, i am sure both settings will very shortly become leaders in this area!

The information below can be found on my personal blog however as this information relates strongly here also, thought it best to place it on both blogs! Enjoy!

Our playground for the day…

Last Friday our College had a Curriculum Day which gave staff throughout the school the opportunity to attend relevant Professional Learning. Several hot topics were listed for staff to focus on such as Differentiation, ADC (Australian Developmental Curriculum), Literacy and the National Curriculum, and of course, Learning with iPads, just to name a few.

Staff were given the opportunity to place their name under the relevant professional learning that they wanted to attend in a Google Doc, and the rest as they say, is history.

Being given the option to run a Curriculum Day event based on ICT and more specifically Mobile Technology (iPads), was fantastic. As we run 2 1:1 iPad Programs (prep and years 6 and 7), it gave teachers a chance to learn more about how iPads and Mobile Tech could be integrated in to teaching and learning programs. I had a number of specialist staff from the Phys Ed and Arts areas also attend and this was great as they could gain a greater understanding of how Mobile Tech could be utilised within their own specialist programs!

As we place such a large emphasis on engagement within teaching, i thought it imperative that i do not give a ‘stand and deliver’ type of scenario as that is simply not engaging, no matter how good your Keynote Presentation is!

So…

The day that i orgainsed ran in the following manner;

1. An iPad Amazing Race.

This involved staff being given an iPad with the selected year 6 and 7 applications, as well as a created eBook that I had produced in their iBooks library. This book outlined exactly what each staff member was to do for the morning and that being having staff visit and use Federation Square as the meeting point, as well as the surrounding landmarks and attractions, to complete a series of iPad based tasks using the app’s available to them! They were to do this in any order, individually, pairs or small groups, and aim to complete as many of the tasks set with the time that they had.

I have embedded all relevant documents below as well as the PDF File of the eBook.

3. More structured PL held at our IT Partners (Xcite Logic) Offices in Collingwood.

Anita L’Enfant, Xcite’s National Manager for Professional Learning, run my staff through effective iPad Use and showed them a number of applications that could be utilised within their teaching and learning programs. I have listed these applications below as well as a short piece about what they are and what they do. Thank you to Anita for running the afternoon’s session as it was great for my staff to have Professional Learning that was not ran by myself.

On reflection, and apart from the weather being terrible in the morning, and the iPads not have decent Wifi connectivity, i was very pleased with how the day ran. Feedback from staff was outstanding and i also need to thank them for their patience and participation throughout the day! One thing that I would liked to have altered was the activities within the morning ‘Amazing Race’ component. I would have liked these to not be as… one dimensional as they were, meaning i found them to be a little in the ‘substitution’ mould of things. Meaning, I would have liked a more creative element to them, to really showcase what the iPad can do. But alas, something for next time. I felt the lack of wifi hindered this also and although Federation Square has free Wifi, it’s not reliable for what i would have liked to do.

Working Hard!

Collaborating!

Below I have included some feedback from staff about the day which I was very happy to receive!

“Last Friday was really good. It was really worthwhile. I learnt how I could use some the apps in an engaging and practical way that then could be taken back into the classroom and be extended upon for learning. I enjoyed having the opportunity at Excite to explore Apps and work on our books. I liked the application of using it at Fed Square as that is an accessible venue for us to visit for excursions, particularly with years 9 and 10’s.”

“I thought that all of the planned activities were great. It gave me a chance to really think about how I can utilize ICT in a PE environment. Personally it gave me time to experiment with assistance the use of different Apps. I would feel more comfortable in using iPads in PE after being exposed to using an iPad and the various Apps.”

All in all I’d love to run a similar day again, perhaps a whole day of the mornings activities with more staff, with more of a creative and collaborative focus. As mentioned i hope that the staff who attended took some valuable things away for future use because as we know, PL that assists us in becoming better educators is PL worth attending!

Below i have added several great links to assist teachers in using iPads based around developing higher order thinking schills such as Bloom’s Taxonomy, Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence’s and other key learning strategies.

Today our College had the pleasure of hosting Kerry and her staff from Mt. Clear P.S. in the Ballarat region. Their visit was part of their Curriculum day through looking at a range of topics which were heavily teaching and learning orientated, as one would expect from a Curriculum day outing!

The ’20’ strong visit was spent largely visiting classes from Prep through to Year 6 and witnessing the teaching and learning that was taking place. The three main aspects and foci for the day for Mt. Clear’s visit were:

Planning for Open Spaces and Shared Groups / Team Teaching.

Using ICT to Support Learning.

Assessment and Tracking Student Achievement Electronically

As far as visits to our College go this one was perhaps a lot more in-depth than others that I’ve hosted as there was a far greater focus here than simply iPads being used for educational purposes! In saying this it was great to share all that we were doing as best i could and not focus solely on iPads and technology. As a College it is great to be able to share our story yet also learn from others who are moving towards a similar path in their teaching and learning programs!

There were many questions that came thick and fast, which was great as that is what professional visits are all about. These questions ranged from our planning time as teams and strategies revolving around this to how technology assists us with not only our students but also our teaching. There was a great focus upon Assessment and how we as a college were differentiating for the various learners in out college. We both agreed upon that differentiating is more than developing 3 tasks of varying ability for a particular task. That there needed to be multiple entry and exit points for students to both obviously enter the task and then also exit.

Prep's Hard At It!

I personally would have to say a highlight of the day being the Preps and their amazing ability to navigate their way around an iPad! The work that they were involved in the iPad rotations that were taking place, all of which were literacy focused were outstanding!

So all in all I hope that the crew from Mt. Clear who visited us today got something valuable out of what they saw and that they can perhaps take an idea or two away for use in their own practices!

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of presenting with a wonderful colleague of mine, Sam, at the ICTEV Creating Connections Conference 2012. Sam, who is our college’s Prep Team Leader, is known throughout the college for both his high level of teaching ability but also his ability to integrate ICT in to his teaching and learning programs.

The topic of our presentation at ICTEV was titled, ‘Movie making on the iPad, so easy a 5 year old could do it’. Our session involved running participants through how to create simple yet effective movies on the iPad device with just a few simple applications, the main two of these being Doodle Buddy, which is a great free app for image creation, and StoryRobe. This app is an iPhone app however still works great on the iPad device. StoryRobe lets students take photos and create sketches that allow them to sequence, narrate and render films. Photo’s can also be imported from the camera roll and this is where Doddle Buddy is great for that.

The other major component of our session was showcasing and demonstrating the great work our prep’s have been doing in relation to creationg StopMotion Animation pieces! I have asked Sam to write a guest post which is below! I have also added several short videos that the prep’s have completed in class!

Thanks!

I’ll never again be surprised by the abilities of five year olds. I probably shouldn’t be already considering some of the amazing things they’ve already done on iPads and their ability to learn so quickly in general, but when I decided to introduce Stop Motion animation this term, I’ve been staggered at how quickly the Preps have picked it up.

I’ve previously used stop motion with year 7 students. It’s a great hands on tool to engage boys and can be easily incorporated into numeracy, literacy and inquiry learning with a small amount of creativity. Generally speaking the kids loved it and self-taught themselves how to do it. All I needed to do was guide them with storyboarding and the odd quality control conversation.

Introducing it to five year olds is a different story. I want them to play with the technique to explore what it can and can’t do and what it looks like when it is done well and when it isn’t done well.

At Manor Lakes we spend the first two sessions on Monday through Thursday in our ‘Investigations’ time, which is based upon the Walker Learning Approach. Here student choice and interests shape the learning environment and although they hadn’t expressed an interest as such, I set up a ‘stop motion’ interest table to see what response I got. Sure enough the lure of using the iPad during investigations (which we normally haven’t) meant it was a popular choice. I chose a pair of students to teach the basics of the iMOTION HD app to, which took about 5 minutes. I then left the students to have a play to see what they would come up with.

Their first attempt wasn’t bad, but there were arms, hands and unwanted camera movement that could all be improved upon. I quizzed the students’ what did they like, what didn’t they like? They had noticed the hand movements . They had noticed it was too quick in places. I was suitably impressed.

The first pair of students made a cute little film of a tower of blocks being built and then vanishing. We showed it to the rest of the grade during reflection time and they loved it. They all wanted a turn.

My two ‘experts’ then passed on the knowledge by sharing it with a pair of students from our neighboring class. They know are beginning to develop stop motions with blocks, cars and magnetic letters too!

I look forward to our ‘play’ with this animation technique developing into our Preppies developing story-based animations. I’ll be sure not to assume they can’t do it, that’s for sure, but for now I’ll be content knowing what they have already been able to master!

In a previous post not all that long ago I discussed a PLT (Professional Learning Team) that we have established at our college. This PLT will focus solely on iPad Integration via teaching and learning around the use of a mobile technlogies in a 1:1 environment.

This Wednesday we continue our journey as a PLT and our fearless leader in the process, Sam, will be guiding us through the following agenda which i believe will be an outstanding start towards what we hope to achieve.

iPad PLT Agenda:

1) Sharing of what is already happening in our classrooms with the use of iPads and technology integration. (15mins)

2) Outlining of lesson template to collect iPad integration ideas and collate as a resource (15mins)

3) Time to plan lessons and view current units of work to determine IF the iPads can be embedded to assist student learning (30mins)

You will need to bring:

– iPad and Laptop (for sharing and planning)

– Some examples of iPad work that has been done in your class, or, apps you have been using. Everyone will get a few minutes to share what has been happening in their class. This may include videos of students using apps, actual pieces of work etc…

– A rough idea of an area you’d like to implement iPads into in your teaching… assessment? involving parents? numeracy? homework? come with an idea so planning will be a little more directed.

It will great to see what staff come to the table with and what their ideas are not only this week, yet throughout the whole process.

One document we aim to fully utilise is the template that we have created to assist staff in their development of technology integration and iPad inclusion. This document is one that we have adapted somewhat from the DEECD Contemporary Literacies Research Project that we were involved in throughout semester 2 of 2011. A document which we found very useful last year and feel that it can be just as, if not more so, throughout our iPad PLT Journey. I have attached the document below for those who wish to view it and even perhaps use it to whatever degree!

Yesterday we again had the pleasure of hosting another school to our college for a PL experience revolving around our 1:1 iPad program, Mt. Pleasant Primary School from Ballarat.

Their Principal Phillip Gladman and 3 of his dedicated staff came out for half a day to see our students in action and converse with several of our staff members about the trials and tribulations surrounding a 1:1 iPad program. As I say to all visitors that we have to our college I feel that there’s no better professional learning that can take place other than visiting other schools and seeing effective teaching and learning in action.

iPads and Science = hand in hand!

Filming their work for reflective and creative purpose!

Phillip and his staff were keen to see how our iPads were being integrated in to our classroom settings as well as finding out some of the particulars surrounding our 1:1 model.

It is always great to hear what other schools are up to and how they, themselves are integrating technology in to their own teaching practices and then to have the option to network and discuss professionally what each setting is doing.

One of the things Mt. Pleasant were interested in were how student/teacher correspondence is managed, especially in relation to teachers obtaining work, etc…

At MLC we use two main methods, Dropbox but also of Google App’s and Gmail.

Being a Google App’s for Primary and Secondary Education College, we have pretty much full range and use of Google’s Applications meaning that all students in our College can be issued with a Gmail account, 25GB of online storage, and full access to the suite of app’s available. At this stage we have all students from years 5-10 with their own MLC Gmail account. This makes the sharing of work via email with staff a very easy and efficient process. For more information of the whole Google App experience, head here: Google App’s for Education.

Collaboration at it's best!

Engagement. A wonderful thing!

Another excellent resource that we discussed was that of YouTube for Schools, which as a college are currently about to roll-out. Like most, if not all schools in that state of Victoria, Internet bandwidth can be a major issue for schools and colleges. This means that when there is heavy traffic on a schools network, the internet can become very slow causing for headaches, frustration and often mass confusion! If schools have sites like YouTube unblocked, this can obviously result in a LOT of downloads, and as a result the Internet at that school will become very slow.

YouTube for Schools allows for schools to set up their networks and back end so that when students access YouTube, they are instantly redirected to the YouTube for Schools section, giving them access to ONLY educational based material plus, any other mainstream videos that staff have added manually. I know here at MLC this will drastically cut down on bandwidth issues we occasionally have with students streaming video off YouTube to solely listen to music. For more information on this, click this lick: YouTube for Schools

Lastly, I showed several excellent resources and sites which can support iPad implementation and application finding for educational needs. These I will include, once I collate them all in to an organised manner, in to a new post!

Hopefully the fantastic people from Mt. Pleasant PS took something away from their visit that they can use, either positive or negative from their experience!, which will assist them in their tech integration! We look forward at hearing of the great things that I am sure are already coming out of such a focused and driven school!

This morning i read a great post on a blog that an Educator by the name a John Pearce, who is known for doing extraordinary things with technology integration in schools, came across. John shared this post via his Scoop.it. The post itself begins with the following;

“In a response to a well written and thoughtful post that I recently read by @jmcconville1000, “Why the iPad is bad for education“, I felt compelled to respond from my personal experience of rolling out a cart of 30 iPads in a shared high school environment.

Fundamentally I believe that an iPad can neither be good or bad. All it can ever be is an iPad. I argue instead, that when used effectively and with specific goals in mind, iPads can have a positive impact on education. Seeing that schools are investing money on these devices, the perspective to adopt is not a combative one, but rather one that explores how to effectively integrate the devices. Whether a school is 1:1, or there is a shared iPad cart, the devices can be used effectively. ‘ The entire post can be found here on The History 2.0 Classroom.

As we here at Manor Lakes discuss, believe and preach, the technology is merely a tool to foster learning. It is not the be all and end all of students meeting their outcomes. It is the way the devices are being used and they way pedagogy has adapted and changed to cater for students using devices that can be extremely helpful. It’s always great to read these posts and to reaffirm that we as a college are on a shared path with many others from around the globe, all of which have a common understanding of how technology is to be used and shared.

Towards the the end of 2010 when we as a college had been involved in the DEECD iPads for Learning Trial, i thought it may be a good idea to survey the students on their thoughts about using iPads in class. The results that we gained from that survey gave us a great indication of how the students were feeling towards using a piece of mobile technology to assist their learning.

5 weeks in to our new 1:1 iPad program, we decided to gain a greater understanding of what our students were feeling this time around, as some of them were in involved in the DEECD trial.

The questions asked of the students were pretty basic and generic and as already mentioned, the student’s had only been involved in this 1:1 iPad program for 5 weeks when this survey was asked of them.

The results as you can see are pretty positive on the whole, indicating to us as a college that the decision we made to not only go 1:1 iPads over MacBooks, but to also go down a BYOD model, was the right choice for our setting, students, and community.

So. Below i have embedded the survey results via a Keynote that i created and then uploaded to Slide Share. Hopefully you find some of this data useful in your own settings!